Nonprofit spotlight: Working to Make a Difference

Some embarrassing volunteer news for us New Yorkers. According to volunteeringinamerica.gov, New York is 50th in volunteerism in the entire country. That’s second to last, right above Louisiana. (The count is 51, factoring in Washington, D.C.) And the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that only about 64.5 million people volunteered between September 2011 and September 2012 — about 26.5 percent of the American population. That’s only a quarter of us!

Chalk it up to the still-weak economy, unemployment, general life fatigue. We’re all so busy. Some days we wonder how we’re going to get dinner on the table, much less devote a few hours to the local animal shelter or soup kitchen.

The good news, of course, is that we can find ways to give back to our communities without piling on the stress. In fact, studies by the Corporation for National and Community Service show that people who volunteer live longer, have greater functional abilities and are less depressed than those who don’t volunteer.

If that doesn’t move you, here are a few more reasons to volunteer: It looks great on your resume. It lets you exercise skills you never knew you even had — as well as meet new people, help new people, get involved with your community and improve your self-esteem.

Part of the mission of Women@Work is to promote community involvement, and we’re thrilled to present our second Non-Profit Expo to give our readers to connect with local nonprofits and charities. We’ve profiled a handful of organizations in the area we hope you’ll look closely at and visit at our Connect event June 25 at the Desmond. Let’s all work together to bump up those volunteer statistics for next year.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Capital Region (BBBSCR) is an affiliate of the national Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, an organization that pairs volunteer adult mentors with particularly vulnerable children. They’ve been in the region for close to 50 years, says Chief Executive Officer Sabrina Houser.

Bigs and Littles, as the adult mentors and the children they work with are called, attend community events, play or watch sports, go to movies, take hikes, or even cook together. “We hold ourselves accountable for helping children who face adversity achieve measurable, positive outcomes and we demonstrate outcomes in three critical areas for our Little Brothers and Little Sisters,” Houser writes in an e-mail. “1) Socio-emotional competencies (e.g. higher aspirations, greater self-confidence, and better relationships), 2) avoidance of risky behaviors, and 3) educational success.”

Ninety-eight percent of the children served by the organization come from single-parent homes, low-income households and/or families with an incarcerated or military parent, according to Houser. Children eligible for the program are between the ages of 6 and 14, though their Big Brother or Big Sister partnerships can continue through high-school graduation.

“We provide quality one-to-one mentoring relationships for children in need, based on a proven model that includes careful matching and ongoing support for mentors, youth and parents/guardians,” she says. The organization is always looking for volunteers (who must be 18 years old or older and willing to commit for at least one year), committee members and board members.

Homelessness in Albany is down by 20 percent, according to Liz Hitt, executive director of the Homeless and Travelers Aid Society in Albany.

Though HATAS is not a shelter for homeless families and individuals, it is a full-time operation that refers people in crisis to various area shelters and programs, which can provide services such as providing funds to prevent eviction. HATAS employs a “housing-first” model that seeks to prevent and divert household members from needing a homeless shelter placement. By concentrating on housing first, consumers in crisis are then able to address additional concerns related to mental illness, substance abuse, and so on. And this year HATAS has opened a “housing and employment center,” Hitt says, which includes computers and phones people can use to find jobs. It’s been a huge success.

Homeless and Travelers Aid Society

“Over 30 adults have found a job through the housing and employment center, which, I’ll be honest with you, I never imagined,” she says. “So we’re super thrilled about that.”

Seekers of Internet access are usually limited by library time limits and restrictions that hamper a person’s ability to really dig deep and apply for jobs. These days, almost all job correspondence is online, which can make finding employment that much more challenging for a person without a home or a computer. The center also houses a new “Kid Zone” so that parents can focus on job-hunting while their children are safe and occupied. And finally, Hitt says, unlike other programs offering Internet services, HATAS doesn’t require I.D.s and Social Security numbers from the people wanting to log on. Everyone’s privacy is respected.

“We just wanted to open up that opportunity not just for homeless people but any low-income people in the neighborhood,” Hitt says. “Homeless people already have to give up more information [than they should have to]. We just wanted to make the process easy so folks could just come in and sign in and they’re good.”

Since Superstorm Sandy last year, which left thousands of people homeless all along the East Coast, Red Cross has had more work than ever, says Gary Striar, regional chief executive officer for the American Red Cross of Northeastern New York (NENY). The Red Cross is still in New York City helping with the recovery process, he says. And, having had back-to-back major disasters with Irene and then Sandy, NENY is bracing itself already for the next catastrophe. He says the organization is focusing on preparedness now and community resiliency.

The American Red Cross is known for its blood drives, which provide 40 percent of the U.S.’s donated blood supply, but in addition to blood banking, NENY provides many other community services, including disaster preparation and response, health and safety courses, swimming lessons and even babysitting classes. As the Red Cross continues to aid Sandy victims by helping to provide deposits on new apartments and hot meals to those who are still displaced, blood donation remains very important. When storms and disasters hit, blood drives in affected areas are inevitably suspended or cancelled, and the blood supply goes down. The best thing to do in a disaster, according to the organization, is to donate blood.

When Charles R. Wood and Paul Newman founded Double H Ranch, it was decided that Double H would never charge for services, says Chief Executive Officer Max Yurenda, who’s been with the program since its inception 21 years ago. The services are for children who are usually dealing with life-threatening illnesses. The program has a medical presence — which is a necessity, Yurenda says, for the kinds of illnesses Double H campers contend with — and works year-round to offer children a place to play, be creative, meet friends and even offer respite to parents. And it’s entirely free, funded by the community.

About 900 children are served in eight one-week-long summer camp sessions at the Lake Luzerne ranch. In the winter, volunteers teach kids to ski. Spring and fall programs are family-inclusive; children, siblings and parents can join special groups and participate in educational sessions to learn to cope with the effects of life-threatening or -altering disease.

Yurenda says over 1,500 volunteers help support and sustain Double H every year. Their next initiative is to spread the word about their organization, recruit more children and volunteers, and alert potential donors to the important work Double H is doing.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation got its start with one little boy: In 1980, a 7-year-old with leukemia named Christopher James Greicius, from Arizona, had expressed his desire to be a police officer when he grew up. To make his wish come true, a group of people from the Arizona Department of Public Safety brought him a police uniform and swore him in as “first honorary DPS patrolman in history,” the story goes. He died the next day.

Since then, Make-A-Wish has granted hundreds of thousands of wishes all across the world; the Capital Region chapter of Make-A-Wish has granted 1,400 wishes since it began formally in 1987. Chief Executive Officer William Trigg says Make-A-Wish’s mission is to find more wishes to grant this year.

“We’d like to grant more than 100 wishes [this year],” Trigg says. “That’s going to require a more intensive outreach effort on behalf of my program staff.” As it stands now, children who qualify must be under the age of 18 and over the age of 2 and a half. And — this is important — they must be facing a life-threatening illness. But Trigg says they’ve stricken terms like “terminal illness” from the general Make-A-Wish vocabulary — about 80 percent of the children whose wishes they’ve granted over the past 27 years are still alive today.

“We’re looking to raise awareness about our mission so that we can grant more wishes,” Trigg says. “In simple terms that’s our business cycle: raise awareness, grant more wishes, then raise more money to grant those wishes.”

Senior Services of Albany is committed to expanding services to the elderly to help improve their quality of life. Since the organization’s beginning in 1952, it has provided food, socialization opportunities and other assistance. Monika Boeckmann, executive director, says along with feeding and caring for seniors, Senior Services also tries to support caregivers. Mostly, though, Boeckmann says she just wants people to know the program exists for them. “Our focus is to expand those services to as many people as possible, because that population is growing,” she says.

“We’re always working on expanding our services to reach as many frail elderly as possible,” she continues. “We’re trying to focus in on the people who are at the most risk of having to go into a nursing home but don’t want to.” In other words, the organization is interested in and committed to keeping seniors in their homes as long as possible, even if that means taking them to doctors’ appointments, bringing them food and helping and visiting with them to just keep them company.

Boeckmann says Senior Services is always looking for volunteers to help with some of these tasks, especially with visitation. At the organization’s daycare program for seniors, Boeckmann says they “love to see new people and be exposed to new things. We’re always looking for people to volunteer.”

The Mohawk Hudson Humane Society is the largest animal-care facility in the Capital Region, and takes in nearly 6,000 animals a year. And that isn’t limited to cats, dogs, hamsters and bunnies. They also receive snakes, birds, fish, horses and, if you can believe it, llamas.

With satellite locations in Glenmont, Latham and Clifton Park, executive director Brad Shear says, “We’re constantly working on adoption.” They run spay, neuter and vaccination programs for low-income owners to ensure pets stay healthy and out of the cages of the animal shelter. And Mohawk Hudson — which has been saving pets since the late 19th century — has also launched a new program called STAR, or Steps To Adoption Readiness. With STAR, untrained dogs are brought to local prisons, where prisoners are taught to train them. This is mutually beneficial to the dog and to the prisoner; studies have shown that working with animals facilitates rehabilitation, and a trained dog is ultimately a more-adoptable dog in the eyes of wary potential adopters who may worry about taking on an unruly shelter dog.

And when disaster strikes — such as Superstorm Sandy — Shear says Mohawk Hudson sets up pet-friendly shelters so that people aren’t faced with the impossible decision of having to leave their pets behind. “What we found is a lot of people won’t leave [their homes in times of crisis] unless they can bring their pets,” Shear says. “And then first responders have to go and rescue them.” That puts not just those people and their pets in danger, but first responders too.

You can help by donating or volunteering, or, of course, adopting your next pet from a shelter.

CAPTAIN (an acronym for Community Action for Parents, Teens and Interested Neighbors) Youth and Family Services began with a group of parents in 1977 who were concerned about troubled teens in Clifton Park. Today, CAPTAIN runs many programs and initiatives to keep runaway teens safe, fed and educated.

“Our job is to lift them up and help them build their lives and futures,” says Sue Malinowski, executive director. In the beginning of this year, Malinowski says, CAPTAIN had 40 kids in its runaway shelter. Thanks to the donated supplies from the food pantry they also run (they’ve served more than 260 families this year), the organization is able to keep the kids fed and housed and in school whenever possible. Then they try to reconcile whatever problems the teen is having with his or her parents. And if those problems are unresolvable and a child’s safety is at risk, CAPTAIN finds another solution.

CAPTAIN Youth and Family Services

“For the most part, [the kids] really strive for normalcy,” Malinowski says. “They want to succeed. They want to do well. Our goal with our kids is to get them back with family whenever possible and appropriate. If that’s not possible, we’ll get them to another safe place.”

CAPTAIN also provides miscellaneous services to families who are struggling. They teach budgeting classes and, through donations, provide toys and bicycles to children who’ve never had them or whose families can’t afford them. All this improves relationships between families, teens and the community. “It’s also very rewarding to help these kids find their way,” Malinowski says.

We often associate the Girl Scouts with cookies and young Brownies. But Chief Development and Brand Marketing Officer Nancy Bielawa says the Girl Scouts of Northeastern New York organization has plenty more going on. “We continue to try and get people to understand the change that we actually made five or six years ago in terms of the leadership-development program that we offer through Girl Scouting,” Bielawa says. “Troop participation is not the only way we offer Girl Scouts.”

In other words, young women and girls can take on the Scouts a la carte, if they like. They can join various summer or school-year programs (which look great on girls’ portfolios when they’re applying to colleges) without having to commit to a troop.

Last year was the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts of Northeastern New York chapter. Today, there are close to 11,000 Girl Scouts across 15 counties in the Capital Region. Each has the opportunity to earn enough merit badges in various categories of study and activism — environmental issues, healthy living, global leadership — to win a “gold award,” presented to a handful of top-performing Girl Scouts in the country.

“We don’t want do things in a troop model anymore,” Bielawa says. Most girls have been Brownies, but few have moved up into the next levels, and Bielawa wants that to change. “I want [girls] to pick and choose programs that are of interest to them,” she says.

“The Salvation Army provides hope to hurting individuals who come through the doors every day,” according to an e-mail from Christine Gray, director of communications for the Salvation Army Empire State Division. The organization provides several services to those in need: emergency shelter and disaster relief, after-school care, clothing, summer camps and even music lessons. “The Salvation Army is meeting critical hunger needs in the region, providing over 250,000 meals annually through soup kitchens, food pantries, Albany’s mobile feeding unit, free food distribution and holiday meals,” Gray writes. She notes that two shelters in Schenectady and Albany have offered more than 22,000 nights of shelter to men in recovery from alcohol and substance abuse. (The S.A. also has an Adult Rehabilitation Center, and a shelter for women and children called the Booth House in Schenectady.)

More than 200 children from the Capital Region also participated in a Salvation Army camping trip in the Finger Lakes, part of the many youth programs the S.A. offers, along with after-school activities, youth development and character-building.

The Salvation Army welcomes volunteers to lend a hand with its many programs and services. That includes everything from ringing the bell during the holidays to delivering food and packing groceries.

It used to be that when a child was born with a certain kind of impairment or disability, her fate usually was to end up at an institution for the rest of her life. “A doctor would say, ‘Your best choice is to put your son or daughter in an institution,’” says Schenectady ARC executive director Kirk Lewis. Children with developmental disabilities were considered futureless and a drain on the wallet.

So, in 1952, a group of families with developmentally-disabled children got together to form the ARC — “advocacy, resources, choices.” Today, the organization supports hundreds of families, operating residences, work programs and support groups. Lewis says the ARC is facing new challenges every day as a generation of kids enter their senior years and face issues such as Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Lewis says the picture today is very different than it was 60 years ago: schools have special-education programs and people are more aware of developmental disabilities than they ever have been. But awareness is key to ensuring everyone gets fair treatment and access to resources.

“The people we support have challenges,” Lewis says, “but they have a lot more in common with everyone than they have differences.”